


stuck and running

by flowermasters



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: (this entire show is held together by trust issues), Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, F/M, Mild Injuries, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Emori/John Murphy (The 100), Minor Monty Green/Harper McIntyre, POV Female Character, Sparring, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 22:47:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11195043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowermasters/pseuds/flowermasters
Summary: Echo finds a new kru.





	stuck and running

**Author's Note:**

> I'm solidly #teamrarepair and #teamstopwoobifyingbellamy, so here we are.
> 
> Warnings for: Bellamy/Echo (this ship didn't start out healthy by any means and I'm aware), background Memori and Marper, developing friendships/relationships, unsafe sparring practices, sexual content.
> 
> Title comes from Harry Styles's "Sign of the Times" ... which is definitely a Becho song. Any Trig in this piece probably came from [here](http://trigedasleng.info/).

It’s been a quiet few days on the Ark.

Well, they aren’t days, really; more like cycles, as Bellamy had told her some hours after their arrival. They wake, eat, work, eat, and sleep, just as they would on Earth, but without things like sunlight to direct them. A natural rhythm stripped of nature. _You’ll get used to it_ , Bellamy told her, clasping her shoulder briefly before moving on, too busy to waste more time explaining their new habitat.

Echo will have to learn the rest gradually, as the moments arise. She hesitates to ask questions, but perhaps she is not as well-trained in concealing her emotions as she believes herself to be, because the others often recognize her confusion for what it is and attempt to explain. Today, though, there’s been no cause for confusion. Nothing seems to have gone wrong, not even the most minor of problems, any one of which usually causes a series of alarms to go off. At breakfast this morning, Raven and Monty—the two who seem most knowledgeable about the daily functions of this place—mentioned nothing which caused them concern.

There’s an air of something about—not quite relaxation, but certainly relief. After three weeks, their new home in the sky seems ready to host them.

During their long, sunless days, Echo usually stays out of the way, making herself useful in whatever discreet ways she can. Today, however, nobody seems to be working. Monty and Harper have unearthed—a strange word now—a small box of playing cards, and last Echo had seen of them, they were building a structure out of cards in the mess hall. A game. In her wanderings, Echo takes note of Murphy and Emori sitting in Raven’s quarters. It sounds as though Emori is teaching them Trigedasleng.

It occurs to Echo after she passes them by that the open door might have been an invitation, but of course she had not taken it. She already knows Trigedasleng, after all, and there’s only room for one teacher.

Echo finds Bellamy by a large window, one which she herself avoids, especially when the others are around. He starts slightly when he notices her coming. “Jeez,” he says, turning his face away from the window. “We’re gonna have to put a bell on you.”

Echo pauses in her path, frowning at him. “A bell for livestock?”

A flicker of amusement crosses his face, and he looks much the way he had when he joked about throwing her overboard. “I was thinking more like a cat,” he says. “It’s just something people say now. Do grounders still keep cats?”

“Some do,” Echo says slowly. “For rats.”

“And for comfort, I’m sure,” Bellamy says, turning his attention back to the window. Echo assumes this means the conversation, strange as it may be, is over, and takes a few steps. When she’s reached Bellamy’s other side, he surprises her by speaking again. “Why do you walk around so much?”

“Is there a problem with that?” Echo asks, speaking a bit more sharply than she intends. Perhaps he would rather she stay in her room all day and night. She would respect Bellamy’s wishes on many things, this being his domain and not hers, but not on that. She could not bear being caged again.

“Not at all,” Bellamy says, glancing at her again. In the artificial glow of the electric lights, he looks paler than usual. Of course, she’s seen him look that way before. That was how she met him. Sallow, slightly bloodless. “Just asking a question.”

He raises his eyebrows at her, as if to suggest the innocence of his question. After a beat, Echo says, “I want to learn this place backwards and forwards. If I’m to ever be useful to our survival, I have to start somewhere.”

“Smart,” Bellamy says. “I figured you were just bored.”

“That, too,” Echo says, fairly confident that he’s placing no judgment on that. Surely they are all bored, or the others wouldn’t have resorted to card houses and language lessons to pass the time. “And you?”

“What?”

“Are you so at a loss for things to do that you’ve taken to staring at the stars?”

“Not so much the stars,” Bellamy says, looking to the window again. “Earth.”

Echo can see it out of the corner of her eye—the glowing, ruinous orb that once was her home. It dominates the view, although the endless blackness of space surrounds it. Echo doesn’t turn her eyes towards the window fully; she grieves only in private. “Are you thinking of your sister?”

“Nail on the head,” Bellamy says, with a wry twist to his mouth.

“Do you think we’ll ever be able to contact them?” Echo asks. “Those in the bunker, I mean.”

She’s not sure why she’s still pursuing this conversation, especially when the very mention of Octavia no doubt calls to Bellamy’s mind all the ways that Echo put her life in danger on the ground. It just seems important that she continue speaking, so long as Bellamy is willing to speak to her. He could’ve asked her to leave him be, or walked away himself, but he hasn’t. That’s something, although she doesn’t quite know what.

“I don’t know,” Bellamy says. “But we’ve tried, and we’ll keep trying.”

There’s a gritty edge in his voice, like determination—or the remnants of it, burned out into a grim resolve. He doesn’t know if he’ll speak to his sister in the next five years, or really, if he’ll speak to her ever again. He can only believe that he might. Now he tortures himself by thinking of what he cannot know.

“Looking at the destruction will only cause you pain,” Echo points out. “Your time would be better served somewhere else.”

“Nothing else to do.”

“Find something,” Echo says firmly. “Better to do anything than wallow in your suffering.”

“I’m not _wallowing_ ,” Bellamy snaps. “What do you suggest, then? Wandering the halls like a ghost?”

Echo doesn’t flinch, but she does grit her teeth, holding herself back. There are many things she could say, starting with _this is your home, not mine, and you brought me here_. He should not feel as lost here as she does.

Bellamy shoots her a quick look, which she does not return. “Sorry,” he says, after a pause. “You’re right, as much as it pains me to admit it.”

Echo notes the touch of sarcasm in his voice; he’s trying to ease the tension. The way his mind works is still strange to her, but she accepts it without comment.

“I probably should be running or something,” Bellamy says, after another few seconds have passed in silence. “Pass the time. Stay healthy. Not a lot of opportunities for exercise up here.”

“We could spar,” Echo says, the words tumbling out of her mouth, triggered by the word _exercise_. The only form of exercise worth practicing on the ground, although it’s more than just exercise; it’s training, companionship, and physical release all at once. It requires trust, among other things.

Bellamy blinks at her, startled. “You serious?”

Echo meets his eyes now, although she can feel her cheeks heating with a blush. It was foolish of her to even suggest it. Clearly, Bellamy can tolerate her presence for a few minutes here and there, but to spend an hour or two training with her—he would undoubtedly rather do anything but. “It was a suggestion,” she says flatly. “I meant nothing by it.”

Bellamy studies her for a moment, his expression—curious. Echo stands her ground. “Sounds like a challenge to me,” Bellamy says finally. “Wait here.”

* * *

 

Bellamy returns from the opposite direction, another interesting facet of their new home—walking will always bring one to the same place, no matter the direction. He carries what look like rolled up mats under each arm. “From medical,” he says, in answer to her appraising look. “Don’t think we’ll be using them for their intended purpose, but it’s better than hitting the floor.”

Echo only nods, still slightly stunned that he seems to have accepted her suggestion. “Here?” she says, looking around the corridor.

“No,” Bellamy says. “No point disturbing the others. There’s a conference room two doors down. Might be enough open space in there.”

Echo nods, then follows as Bellamy turns and leads the way to the room he mentioned. It’s larger than she might have expected, with a long table at the end of the room closest to the door and an open space at the other. Bellamy tosses the mats down on the open floor and sets about unrolling them. Echo gives the table a subtle nudge, but it’s bolted to the floor, like most of the furniture here. So be it; they will simply avoid it.

The space isn’t as big as she would prefer, nor do the mats cover much ground, but they don’t have many options. Echo crosses the room to stand a few feet from Bellamy. Her eyes are drawn to the large white screen on the wall, one of many to be found on the Ark. “What was this used for?” she asks.

Bellamy glances up. “Projections,” he says. “Could’ve been anything. A room like this would’ve been used for meetings, mostly.”

“Meetings of what?” Echo asks. “Your leaders?”

Bellamy’s mouth twists in that wry way that Echo is coming to know as he continues arranging the mats. “Probably. Kane, Abby, and Jaha would’ve been there.”

“Not you?”

Bellamy scoffs. “No. I wasn’t anywhere close to important enough on the Ark.”

“What were you?”

Bellamy glances up again. “You’re asking a lot of questions today.”

Echo resists the urge to look away. “Nothing else to do.”

Bellamy straightens up, then crosses back to the table. “I started off as a guard cadet,” he says, bending to undo the laces on his boots. “Then I got demoted. Sanitation.”

His voice is almost toneless. Almost. Echo recognizes something like bitterness, or perhaps she’s thinking of her own. But she hadn’t been demoted—she had been banished. Banished by a once-banished king who is now dead. The suffocating shame has lessened slightly since she managed to survive Praimfaiya, but bitterness leeches into her thoughts more and more frequently with each day that passes. Bitterness at Roan, sometimes, treasonous thoughts—but more often bitterness at herself, for things she cannot undo.

Not when she sleeps, though. Her dreams belong to the Mountain Men, even now. Perhaps especially now. She wanders halls of artificial lights and metal walls, the halls of the Ark, only to realize—in the end—that she has never left the Mountain.

“Demoted?” is all she says. “What did you do?”

Bellamy straightens up once more, his boots and socks now removed. “Story time’s later,” he says. “First, ground rules.”

“There are very few rules on the ground,” Echo points out, following suit in removing her boots and socks. Her hair is already braided, saving her the time now. She doesn’t allow herself to feel stung by Bellamy’s unsubtle rebuke and instead meets his gaze evenly, expectantly.

“Such as?”

“Don’t deliberately kill your partner.”

“Well, there’s a start,” Bellamy says dryly. “I was thinking more along the lines of ‘try to avoid the face.’”

Echo tries not to smirk, but something of it must come through. “I’m not being vain,” Bellamy says, furrowing his brow at her. “We’re not exactly operating with a full medical staff up here. I’d like to hang on to most of my teeth. And my nose. Et cetera.”

“Fair enough,” Echo concedes. She won’t strike his face intentionally, then. “Any more rules?”

“We tap or say ‘yield,’” Bellamy says. “Deal?”

Somehow, Echo doesn’t expect much yielding from either of them. “Deal.” She moves forward, her bare feet meeting the cool fabric of the mat, and stands waiting for him, arms loose at her sides.

“You aren’t going to stretch or something?” Bellamy asks, blinking at her.

Echo tilts her head to one side until the discs of her neck give a soft, satisfying crack. “We wouldn’t have time to stretch before a true fight. But we can, if you insist.”

Bellamy shakes his head briefly, as if in amazement. “I’m going to regret this,” he says, moving forward to the mat. He comes to a halt about ten feet from her and stands, meeting her gaze evenly. “Well?”

It is only now, in the split second before she begins to move, that Echo considers the danger in this. Only weeks ago, Bellamy’s hands were on her throat, after she failed—again—to kill his sister. She has no desire to injure him, but if he’s holding back any rage against her, now would be the time to unleash it. She is being foolish by allowing him this opportunity.

Of course, if Bellamy still wanted to hurt her, he would’ve simply left her behind.

Her feet slap heavily on the mat as she moves, but she feels light for the first time in weeks as she runs toward him. Bellamy is ready for her, of course; she hadn’t been going for subtlety. He dodges and she skids, righting her course. He makes a grab for her waist, trying to bring her down to the mat, but she’s quicker than he expects. She uses his outstretched arm and momentum to bring him down instead, landing him half on the mat and half off.

He looks up at her, physically stunned from the impact against the floor but not exactly surprised to find himself there. Perhaps he expected to hit the floor, just not so quickly. “Alright?” Echo says, still in a crouch.

“Fine,” Bellamy says. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

He grabs her by the calf and yanks, pulling her out of her crouch and sending her to the mat. She kicks out with her other leg instinctively, catching him in the ribs. He grunts but doesn’t stop moving, rolling away and scrambling to get his feet under him once more. Echo does the same, allowing Bellamy to put some distance between them before they move again, this time meeting in the middle.

They fall into a rhythm. Feinting, kicking, dodging; it’s a relief, really, to just let go, let her body make the decisions. The challenges they have faced in the past weeks have been as much mental as they have been physical—survival has required intelligence, which Echo fancies herself to possess, and technological expertise, which she knows she does not. But here, in a fight, Echo’s body can move almost without her telling it to. Every part of her knows what to do.

Bellamy is a strong and clever opponent, but even among the warriors of her own people, Echo fights with skill. At last he says, “Alright, I yield, shit.”

Echo, straddling his back with one of his arms locked and the other pinned under his body, lets go and clambers off him, panting. Bellamy rolls over onto his side, sweat damp and flushed with exertion. Echo allows herself a skimming glance up his body, at least partly checking for visible injuries. He looks healthy—healthier even than he had before the fight. More alive. “Are you injured?”

“My pride, maybe,” Bellamy says dryly, sitting up with a discreet wince. “And maybe a few pulled muscles.”

Echo feels similarly; the muscles in the backs of her thighs are almost pleasantly tight, a keepsake of a good fight. Her left shoulder aches, a more pressing reminder. She stands, holding out a hand to Bellamy. He takes it, allowing her to tug him to his feet. The second time they’ve done such a thing, although their positions are reversed. “Then we have accomplished our purpose.”        

“Which is what?” Bellamy says, letting go of her hand once he’s righted himself.

“To fight without trying to kill each other,” Echo says. A joke, though not the funniest. Bellamy rewards her with a half-smile, albeit one accompanied by rolled eyes. He moves towards the table, presumably to put on his shoes, and she moves in the opposite direction to do the same.

“What about the mats?” Echo asks, lacing her boots.

“They can stay for the time being,” Bellamy says. “I’m mostly in the mood for some water.”

Bellamy heads for the door and she follows, as they are of the same mind. They find the mess hall already occupied; Monty and Harper have either given up or knocked down their card structure, and have been joined in a new game—one involving individual hands of cards—by Emori and Murphy.

Murphy, facing the door, sees them enter first. “What have you two been up to?” he asks dryly.

They must look a sight—both sweaty and still slightly pink in the face. Echo hadn’t thought to fix her hair, which has halfway completed the process of falling from its braid. Bellamy rolls his eyes again. “Fighting,” he says. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Should we be concerned?” Monty asks, his attention mostly absorbed in his cards.

“No,” Bellamy says, moving to fetch a cup of water. Echo lingers by the door, unwilling to follow him so closely in front of the others. “Where’s Raven?”

“In her room,” Emori says. “She didn’t say as much, but I think her leg is bothering her today.” She glances at Murphy as she speaks, but his eyes are on his cards. It’s quick enough to go unnoticed, but Echo is skilled at observing things others are likely to miss. In this way, she is learning bits and pieces about the people she will be living with for the next five years. 

Bellamy nods. “I’ll check on her,” he says, moving towards the door again. He carries two cups of water, their most precious resource here—though Echo has to concentrate on _not_ thinking about where their supply comes from. She blinks, surprised, when Bellamy pauses to offer her the second cup.

“Thank you,” she says quietly, moving aside so that he can exit. Bellamy nods at her, and then he is gone.

“Murphy,” Harper says abruptly. “You’re not as sneaky as you think you are. Knock it off.”

“I’m wounded,” Murphy says. “If anyone’s cheating, it’s Monty. He’s being real quiet.”

“I’m strategizing,” Monty returns, looking up. “You wouldn’t know anything about that.”

Echo observes this exchange for a moment longer, curious. There’s an edge to many of this group’s interactions, past tensions rising in unexpected moments, but the atmosphere remains friendly now. Conscious that she may be caught staring, however, Echo turns to go.

“You could join us. If you’re willing to learn the game,” Emori says, and Echo pauses in the doorway, aware that she is being addressed.

Emori’s expression is neutral when their eyes meet, but Echo thinks she recognizes this sentiment. Emori has no kru by birth, but they are both of Earth, unlike the others. Echo is the true outsider here, the only one without a friend or family, but Emori must know something of being an outsider, too. Echo finds herself oddly gratified by this, even as she opens her mouth to refuse.

“ _Nodotaim_ ,” she says. “Once I’ve learned how to play.”

Emori doesn’t seem to expect any different, and the refusal doesn’t offend her. She nods once, then looks back to her cards. The game continues as Echo leaves the room.

* * *

The rest of the day—so to speak—and the next pass uneventfully. Raven is back on her feet by the following morning, having perhaps recovered from whatever increased pain she had been experiencing. From what Echo has observed of Raven, she seems unwilling to rest, especially when she most needs it.

In her daily travels, Echo comes across Bellamy shortly after breakfast. He is, curiously enough, approaching the door to her quarters. “Wrong door,” Echo says.

“Why do you say that?” Bellamy asks, pretending not to have been startled by her.

“I still sometimes walk past my own room,” Echo says. Most all the doors have words or symbols printed on them indicating their purpose, but when distracted, it’s easy enough to try the wrong one first. “But I’m getting used to it.”

“I was looking for you, believe it or not,” Bellamy says. “Thought you might want to spar again.”

Echo has had an inkling that Bellamy might want to fight again, what with the restlessness lingering in the air here, but she hadn’t expected him to come to her so soon—or expected him to come to her at all, really. She’d assumed she would have to wait for the proper moment and then suggest it again, something which she hadn’t been looking forward to doing. She wants to spar, of course—it has thus far been the most engaging activity she has known on this ship—but if she wants Bellamy to trust her someday, let alone like her, surely she must be cautious. Trust cannot be forced; it must be earned.

But now, here he is. “Yes,” Echo says. “Let me get something from my room. Same place as last time?”

“Sure,” Bellamy nods. “Meet you there.”

Echo follows Bellamy after fetching the leather strip she uses to bind up her hair and affixing a quick braid. When she enters the conference room, Bellamy is sitting spread-legged on the mat, extending his arms to reach his toes. “We’re stretching today,” he says when she enters. “Or at least I am. My back will thank me later.”

Echo nods, toeing off her boots and socks before joining him on the mat. She moves through her stretches more quickly than he does, impatient to begin. The play of Bellamy’s muscles under his clothes is distracting. She’s seen him in less, just as he has seen her, but she had not had the opportunity or the inclination to consider his form while inside the Mountain.

Now, unfortunately, she has little else to consider.

“Ready?” Bellamy says, rising to his feet with a final roll of his shoulders.

Echo rises as well, nodding once. This time, Bellamy doesn’t wait for her to make the first move. He lunges. Echo dodges, and the fight begins.

It takes longer for her to get him to the mat this time. He’s fighting with more surety now. It’s less as though he had previously underestimated her—Bellamy, of all people, knows what she is capable of—and more as though he’s becoming comfortable with this situation.

When Echo finally does get him to the mat by tripping him, he’s ready for her, tangling his legs with her own to bring her down with him. Bellamy uses his larger size to pin her legs, and the fight quickly devolves into wrestling, both trying to gain and maintain the upper hand. She can see the glint of challenge in his eyes, the primal urge she knows well, in opponents and in herself—the thrill of a good fight. When she sees the opportunity, Echo doesn’t hesitate to take it; she bites Bellamy, right on the bicep, digging her teeth in. She can’t break the skin even if she’d wanted to, thanks to the fabric of his shirt, but the unexpected pressure of her teeth is enough to startle him into releasing her.

“What the hell?” he says, breathless, as Echo scrambles away, putting enough distance between them to get to her feet again. He does the same, his eyes never leaving her.

Echo realizes the biting may have been a step too far, but the adrenaline coursing through her manages to overpower the surge of embarrassment. “We never agreed not to use our teeth. Only not to knock them out.”

There’s a pause while they circle one another, both still tense and ready. “Fine,” Bellamy says. “I can fight dirty, too.”

Echo feints, coming at him from the left before kicking out with her right leg; Bellamy is unprepared, the kick catching him in the ribs. He can indeed fight dirty, grabbing hold of her braid and tugging at the earliest opportunity, though he releases her hair as soon as she lets out a grunt of pain.

Taking advantage of his mercy is instinct. Echo knees him, hard, sending him stumbling backwards.

“Why did you let go?” she asks, almost angry with him. She’s always angry when a skilled opponent makes a bad move, even when it benefits her. She dislikes losing respect for people. “You think I’ve never had my hair pulled?”

Bellamy grins at her, though he is visibly panting from the blow. “Next time I won’t let go, then.”

Today’s fight ends on a more mutual note. Bellamy is the one to yield, but they are both exhausted by the end of it. “You fought well today,” Echo tells him as they journey to the mess hall to fetch water. The large room is empty at the moment, with the others presumably pursuing their own interests elsewhere.

“Thanks,” Bellamy says. “You, too, although I guess you know that.”

“It’s what I do best.” Echo watches Bellamy out of the corner of her eye, wondering what he’s thinking as she says this. He knows what she’s best at, after all. Fighting, and lying, cheating, killing. All things he disdains—or says he does.

To her surprise, he doesn’t echo her thoughts, although he does pause before he speaks, downing his water. “Don’t underrate yourself,” he says. “We’re all more than one thing.”

He moves for the exit then, seemingly unaware of Echo’s eyes on him. “See you later, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Echo repeats, watching him go.

* * *

 

Echo comes across the pipes during her wanderings in the sixth week of their occupation here. Two identical white pipes, made not of metal but of thick plastic, lying on a shelf in a storage room. She lifts them, one in each hand, and tests their heft, their durability. Nowhere near as heavy as a sword or staff, it is unlikely they would be of much use in a real fight. Still—Echo has missed fighting with a weapon. These approximate the length and shape of a sword, if not the danger.

She takes the pipes with her once she’s finished exploring the storage room, unsure if she is committing a crime by doing so. She resolves to ask the first Sky person she comes across, and happens upon two of them in the corridor. Monty sits on the ground, peering into the inner workings of a wall, directing Harper on which wires to place where. Monty’s hands have yet to recover completely from their exposure to radiation—there seems to be doubt as to whether he will ever regain the ability for delicate movements—but he can now hold a flashlight. “Move your hand for a second—yeah, you’ve got it,” he tells Harper, seemingly unaware of Echo’s approach.

“Is it alright if I use these?” Echo asks. Monty’s head snaps around to look at her, and something clatters inside the wall when Harper jumps in surprise. Echo hadn’t thought much of Bellamy’s comment about wearing a bell, but perhaps she will consider stomping to announce her presence in the future, if the rest of Skaikru refuse to be aware of their surroundings.           

“Use them for what?” Monty asks, looking up at her curiously.

“Training.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Monty says, as Harper carefully withdraws her upper body from inside the panel in order to see what’s going on. “Maybe try not to break them, though.”

“Or Bellamy,” Harper says. Monty snorts, and although Echo doesn’t laugh, she can only hope that was meant as a joke. She nods her gratitude and heads on her way, leaving Monty and Harper to finish their repairs in peace.

Echo brings the pipes with her to spar the following day. To no one’s greater surprise than her own, this has become a pattern. Every other day—Bellamy claims their bodies need time to recover—Bellamy began seeking her out sometime in the hours after their morning meal and suggesting a sparring session. By the second full week of this, Bellamy no longer had to look for her; Echo began meeting him in the conference room an hour after breakfast.

They haven’t discussed the formation of this ritual. Echo dares not ask his reasons for continuing it, and Bellamy has not offered them.

When she enters the room, Bellamy is leaning against the edge of the table, tapping at one of the glowing slates Echo has seen various members of Skaikru use—to look at readings and make reports. Bellamy handles it more regularly than the others, using his free moments to tap steadily at the screen with a small stylus. Recording their time here, he’s said.

“Anything to report today?” Echo asks.

“Not really,” he says dryly. She already knows that nothing new has happened since she saw him fiddling with it at dinner last night—still, he records. “But if we make it back to the ground, even today could be studied as history someday.”

“And if not, it rests in our tomb forever.”

“Someone’s feeling optimistic today,” Bellamy says, giving the screen a final tap before looking up at her. “What’ve you got?”

“Pipes,” Echo says, lifting them slightly so that he can see them better. “Something new. I thought we might use them.”

“As what? Weapons?”

“How did you guess,” Echo says, which makes Bellamy roll his eyes at her. 

He straightens up and sets aside the tablet. “I don’t have nearly as much training at fighting with sticks as you do,” Bellamy says. “You’re gonna kick my ass.”

“Nothing new about that,” Echo returns, tossing the pipes onto the mat with a soft thud. “Practice will make you a stronger fighter. Besides, these rods are no more dangerous than the ones Azgeda children learn to fight with.”

Something about that makes Bellamy frown, though he says nothing. Echo can’t withhold a comment, although perhaps she should, for the sake of peace. “Sky people have their survival lessons, yes? We have ours.”

 _Had_ , she remembers suddenly. _We had ours._ There is no way to know exactly how many of her people have survived—or will survive—to carry on those lessons. Judging by the look on Bellamy’s face, he’s thinking of the same.

“Sorry,” Bellamy says, approaching the mat. “You’d think I would be used to kids fighting by now.”

They move through their stretches quickly today, some of the lightness of the mood gone now. Still, Echo feels an immediate surge of freedom when she takes a pipe in hand, holding it high and ready. She misses having a sword, a bow, a knife; there’s a part of her that always feels naked without a weapon. Vulnerable. One of the earliest lessons she’d ever received was to never let an opponent find you unarmed. She had slept, as a child, gripping the handle of the knife under her pillow. Even now, on the Ark, her hand finds the underside of the pillow, searching for a blade that isn’t there.

“I’ll go easy on you,” she says, although she knows Bellamy is not the type to prefer easy treatment. “Until you’re comfortable with it.”

“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?” Bellamy asks, raising the pipe in his hand and swinging it.

A wide, sweeping blow, easily parried; the pipes make a satisfying _thwack_ as they hit each other. Echo smiles despite herself. “Fine. I’ll kick your ass.”

Bellamy tries admirably, but his swordplay is no match for hers. She makes no pretense at holding back her skill, but she does aim for less painful strikes. If this injures Bellamy’s pride, he says nothing of it. After some time she strikes him in the ribs, causing him to double over slightly, wheezing.

“Are you alright?” Echo asks, lowering her weapon, aware of the hidden dangers of a broken rib. She hadn’t struck him _that_ hard, but perhaps—

Bellamy doesn’t answer, instead making a quick, jabbing strike with the pipe; Echo dodges instinctively, but he misses her torso by a matter of inches. He doesn’t let that stop him, moving forward to strike again and only allowing her one hit to his right shoulder.

Echo knows he’s going to hit her face in his overconfidence less than a second before it happens, allowing her some time to flinch, but he catches her across the chin anyway. It’s not the first time one of them has been accidentally struck in the face, caution or no caution. Echo takes it in stride, preparing to strike again, but Bellamy looks startled.

“Shit,” he says. “You’re bleeding.”

Echo reaches up with her free hand to touch her bottom lip. Her fingers come away sticky, and the area stings to the touch. A split lip, hardly the worst injury she has ever been dealt. “It’s nothing. Keep going.”

“No, you’re bleeding a lot,” Bellamy says, dropping the pipe and moving unexpectedly close. He’s looking at her mouth. Echo raises her hand again as if to hide the wound, although she knows not why. “Shit. I’m sorry. Let me get you a rag or something.”

Echo nods once, too startled by this display of concern to tell Bellamy to stop his fussing. He leaves the room briefly, returning a minute or two later with a damp cloth. By this time, Echo has blood running down her chin and hand, which she has been using to stem the flow as much as possible.

Bellamy hands her the cloth, watching with a furrowed brow as she presses it to her mouth. “Sorry,” he says after a moment. “I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” Echo says, frowning at him and irrationally embarrassed by the sincerity of his words. “It was a good hit. In battle, you could have used strategy to best me.”

“You wouldn’t have stopped to check on me in battle,” Bellamy points out.    

“No,” Echo admits. She isn’t even sure why she stopped today. “I’m not prone to mercy.”

“Good thing we aren’t enemies anymore, then,” Bellamy says mildly. Echo doesn’t meet his eyes, choosing to remain ignorant of what accusations she might see there.

Bellamy doesn’t know, of course, how hard she had tried to show Octavia mercy, that day on the cliff. How she had only decided to kill Octavia at the conclave when it became a matter of Azgeda or certain death. How she had turned her weapons away from Bellamy when she could. She had failed him in all those things, just as, in the end, she had failed her king and her people. It stings to be reminded that they are only allies now because allies are scarcer than ever before.

“You okay?” Bellamy asks. “Maybe you should sit down.”

“I’m fine,” Echo says sharply, lowering the rag. “We can continue.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m done for the day,” Bellamy says, in the same mild tone as before. Trying to ease the tension once again—though he has every reason not to care what the mood is between them. “I think you bruised my ribs.”

Echo watches, silent, as Bellamy makes his way back to the table, where they’ve begun thinking ahead to bring water for after their fights. He takes a drink, seemingly unaware of the scrutiny upon him. Echo hesitates, then moves towards the table as well, taking the other cup. It hurts to drink and the water tastes of blood, but she _is_ thirsty.

Bellamy leans against the table once more, ostensibly resting. Echo does the same, albeit warily, and holds the rag to her mouth again. The air still feels heavy with—something. Past tensions, maybe.

“How old do they start you guys?” Bellamy asks abruptly. “Training, I mean.”

Echo blinks at him, surprised. “That depends,” she says. “I was—I’m not sure. Small. Why do you ask?”

Bellamy shrugs and takes another sip of his water. “Trying to understand, I guess.”

Understand what—her people? She’s not sure Bellamy—or any of his kru—will ever be completely capable of that. The same could be said for her own kru, something she is not unaware of. “I was orphaned young,” Echo says abruptly, hardly aware that she’s going to speak before she does. “My mother died of an infection soon after I was born; my father in battle when I was a small child. He was a member of the Royal Guard, a trusted adviser of Queen Nia. That makes my circumstances different than most.”

Bellamy nods, looking thoughtful. “She took you in?”

“Not exactly,” Echo says. “But she made sure I was cared for. She put me someplace where I would be trained, when the time came.”

“Seems like the time came pretty early.”

“I was ready for it,” Echo says, noting the touch of sarcasm in Bellamy’s tone. “It’s what I was born for. Serving my queen. Or my king.”

Bellamy pauses for a moment, studying her. “You really believe that.”

Echo furrows her brow, unsure whether to be offended or confused or both. “I do,” she says, swallowing heavily. “Or I did. I am Azgeda no more—you of all people know that.”

There’s a pause, a few seconds where Bellamy looks at her, his expression unreadable. Echo doesn’t look away, confused by his reaction and his questions—as he must be on those times when she dares ask him questions about himself or his people.

“You asked me, a while back—what I did to get demoted to sanitation,” Bellamy says suddenly. “Second children weren’t allowed on the Ark. I was stupid. I tried to do something nice for Octavia. Needless to say, we got caught.”

Echo frowns at him, confused, and he elaborates, “I took my sister out of our quarters to go to a party. She’d never left before—she wasn’t even supposed to exist. We got caught, and they executed my mother, locked my sister up, and demoted me. Then, when they sent the kids in lockup to the ground, I shot Chancellor Jaha to get on board, to protect her.”

“You don’t have to tell me this,” Echo says, wary.

“Fair’s fair,” Bellamy returns.

Echo watches him for a moment, unsure of what to say. Bellamy witnessed her shame; now he tells her his own. The pity Echo feels for him surprises her, but she senses Bellamy does not want her pity. “Our people have shaped us into who we are. For better or for worse.”

“You’re right,” Bellamy says quietly. “But I have to hope that we can still be better. Or at least try to be.”

He looks up at her again, meeting her eyes; she nods, struck by the level of commitment in his voice. He clings to this idea fiercely, perhaps because it is the only thing that keeps him from drowning in his past. Now, as he tells her this, it’s like he’s offering a hand, if she’s willing to take it.

The silence breaks when Bellamy says, “Let me take a look at your lip.”

Echo lowers the rag. She’d almost forgotten she was holding it. “Looks like the bleeding has stopped,” he says, looking first at her mouth and then at her eyes. “You’re gonna have a fat lip for a couple of days, though. Sorry about that.”

“Stop apologizing,” Echo chides, using the least sullied portions of the damp cloth to wipe at the drying blood on her chin and hand. “You didn’t exactly deliver a death blow.”

“You missed some,” Bellamy says. “On your neck.”

When Echo reaches up to scrub blindly at her skin, Bellamy reaches out, nudging her hand in the right direction with a brush of his fingers. This close to her throat, he can surely feel her breath catch, as well as hear it. “Sorry,” he repeats, lowering his hand immediately.

“What did I just say?” Echo says, and Bellamy scoffs at her, amused. She relaxes slightly, enough to be able to feign indifference to his touch.

* * *

“So,” Murphy says, breaking a long silence. “What’s the deal with you and Bellamy?”

“What?” Echo asks, pulled from the concentration she holds on her cards. Emori had offered again to teach her how to play the card game—poker, the Sky people call it—and Echo had felt it might be an insult to refuse again. It has taken an hour since dinner for her to feel somewhat comfortable with the rules, and now Murphy insists on _talking_.

“Subtle as a rusty blade, John,” Emori says, shaking her head with some mixture of exasperation and fondness.

“What?” Murphy says, feigning innocence yet again. “I’m making conversation.”

“What do you mean, ‘deal?’” Echo asks, frowning at Murphy. She almost lowers her cards in her distraction, but to do so would be to betray both her hand and her thoughts.

“The relationship, he means,” Emori says. “We were just curious.”

Echo had been almost certain of his meaning from the beginning; the question had been a formality. “There is no relationship,” she says. “We spar together.” The four-day-old cut on her lip is evidence enough of that.

“Yeah, a lot,” Murphy says. “You two spend a lot of time together, that’s all.”

“No more time than he spends with Raven, or Monty, or any of you. Shall we finish this game now?” Echo says sharply, disliking his smug tone. Murphy has done nothing to offend her since before Praimfaiya, when he sought to sacrifice her life for Emori’s, but Echo has the distinct feeling that he and Emori are enjoying her confusion.

“Sure,” Emori says, but the amusement lingering in her expression confirms Echo’s suspicion. Echo holds her tongue, aware that the greater her outrage, the more fun they will have with her. New as she is to this game, she doesn't even get the satisfaction of besting them.

Though their assumptions are incorrect, not everything they’ve said is false. Bellamy knows almost everyone here, but Echo knows only him; of course she is most comfortable with him. If the others fall to gossip in their idle hours, that is no fault of her own.

With that in mind, however, she resolves to spend more time with the others, and challenges Murphy and Emori to a rematch the following evening.

Naturally, she does not tell Bellamy of this plan.

“Bellamy, you in?” Harper asks, as they’re clearing up the following night’s dinner—MREs, the others call them, or rations, perhaps emphasizing what a pitiful dinner they usually make. “Murphy said poker tournament after dinner.”

“I heard,” Bellamy says, amused, “but no thanks. I’ve got to write the log for today before lights out.”

“Well, I’m in,” Raven says, limping by with a clattering stack of plates and cups, “and I’m going to smoke all your asses.”

Raven does play well, with a stronger understanding of the game than the others seem to have. She, Monty, and Murphy waste several minutes arguing over the rules, with everyone but Echo seemingly unaware that Emori has slipped several extra cards into her hand during the confusion. Echo, for her part, is struggling and not happy about it, although everyone else’s spirits are high enough that her own cannot fall too low. Bellamy sits at another table to work on the log; he seems absorbed in his work, although he does break up the argument by agreeing with Raven and Monty, and Echo notes a smile crossing his face now and again when somebody says something especially ridiculous.

“I’m turning in,” he announces during the third game.

“’Night,” Monty and Harper reply in unison, both focused on their cards.

“Don’t get too crazy, alright?” he says, standing and approaching the table to observe the game for a moment.

“This isn’t even real gambling,” Raven says, waving a hand at him vaguely.

Bellamy rolls his eyes fondly and makes his way to the kitchens to refill his cup. On his way back, he catches Echo’s eye.  _Bluffing_ , he mouths, jerking his head as if to indicate Monty.

“Hey,” Murphy says, having noticed this. “Get out of here or spread the wealth, Bellamy.”

“As if you two haven’t been helping each other cheat through every game,” Echo retorts almost instinctively, nodding at Emori and Murphy. Bellamy shrugs at Murphy, then tosses Echo a grin on his way out. Echo looks down at her cards, suppressing a smile of her own, and doesn't look up again until he has left the room. If anyone notices, they are hopefully distracted by the latest accusation of cheating leveled at Murphy.

* * *

Poker night becomes another small ritual over the next few weeks, interspersed with whatever other card games the Sky people can remember—Go Fish and blackjack become favorites for their simplicity. Echo finds herself looking forward to the games almost as much as she looks forward to sparring with Bellamy. Though she continually debates the merits of engaging with the others versus the familiarity of self-containment, it’s a welcome change to have _fun_. So much of their time is spent in idle hours, waiting for a crisis that will inevitably blindside them anyway. The ship rattles along, obliging them for now. The condition of the communications systems has seen no improvement; they are all warding off doubt that it will ever be repaired.

“You’ll have your log to show your people,” Echo says, tying off the end of her braid. “When we return to the ground.”

“Now you actually are an optimist,” Bellamy says absently, tapping at the screen. “I’m impressed. And it’s not _my_ log, it’s _our_ log. I’m just the only one that bothers.”

“Well, don’t forget to include in today’s entry that Echo kom Azgeda defeated Bellamy Blake in combat once again.” It’s a messy attempt at cheering Bellamy, but Echo is admittedly lacking practice at such things—sparing feelings, softening blows.

When she reaches the mat and turns to face him, he has looked up from the tablet. “Is that so.”

“You must be getting used to it by now,” Echo says, dropping to the mat to begin her stretches. “But I want it remembered.”

“I’ll make sure to include it,” Bellamy says dryly. “Now let me finish this sentence, please.”

Echo lets him be, but she doesn’t miss the way his eyes linger on her for a second longer than necessary as she rolls her shoulders, readying her body to spar. Had he been anyone else, she would have minded if their eyes caught for too long. But Echo says nothing, meeting Bellamy’s gaze evenly for the split second before he looks back to the log.

Since the day he accidentally split her lip, now three weeks past, Echo has noticed a change. It’s not something she could have put into words had she been inclined to talk to anyone about it, although she’s sure she would have a willing audience in Emori and Murphy, at least. Their sparring is much the same—last week, for instance, Bellamy had nearly broken an ankle when Echo kicked his feet out from under him—but since their conversation about their shames, Bellamy has— _looked_ at her. Even in the middle of conversation, he studies her, watching her like she represents a riddle to solve. Echo finds this attention frustrating in several ways, but dares not voice a question as to its cause. Asking the wrong thing might put an end to one of the few things here that makes the passing of time bearable.

After a moment, Bellamy sets aside the slate. “Pipes today?”

“If you wish,” Echo says. “You’re improving.”

“Yeah, coming right for your crown,” Bellamy says dryly, fetching the pipes from where they rest by the door. He tosses her one and it hits her palm with a solid, comforting smack.

Something about this sight makes him smirk. “What?” Echo asks, frowning, as he joins her on the mat to stretch.

“Nothing,” Bellamy says, mirroring her cross-legged pose as he stretches out his arms. “You always look so serious when we’re about to start, that’s all.”

“How am I supposed to look?” Echo challenges. “You would prefer I laugh as I defeat you?”

Bellamy grins. “Now you’re asking for it. Ever heard the old saying, pride goes before a fall?”

“No,” Echo says. “I don’t make a habit of falling.”

Neither of them have much focus to spare for thorough stretching, too eager to begin. Echo has been taught to take every fight seriously, to never let a challenge go unanswered, but the energy in these moments is exciting, energizing. She enjoys sparring, always has, but she has come to enjoy sparring with Bellamy in particular. Now that they are only enemies on the mat, she finds his company fulfilling, so fulfilling that it almost unnerves her.

Bellamy makes the first strike today, a solid hit to her right thigh. She responds in kind only a moment later, and the interplay begins.

He is indeed improving—he’s a fast learner, which she might have expected of him. She’s curious about how he would have handled a real melee weapon—a sword, something deadly—on the ground. Of course, he never would have let her get this close to him on the ground—and if he had a weapon in his hand, they would not have been sparring for pleasure. Things have changed in the sky.

“Distracted?” Bellamy challenges, as they move back and forth, neither able to get close enough to the other to strike for the moment.

“What makes you say that?” Echo asks. “Wishful thinking?”

“Something about your eyes,” Bellamy says, an instant before he lunges.

Echo parries, but the fight is close now; their weapons strike against one another so powerfully that her hand begins to ache from the blows. She gasps aloud despite herself when suddenly something _gives_ , the pipe in her hand cracking—actually cracking—when she parries a blow.

The pipe is not yet in two pieces, but Echo can feel that its integrity is fatally wounded. It won’t hold up against another blow.

Bellamy must be able to tell by the look on her face. “Yield?” he asks, smirking.

Echo doesn’t allow herself to think—she tosses aside the pipe and flings herself at him, using her full weight to bring him to the ground. Bellamy grunts, unprepared for the attack or for hitting the floor, but almost immediately bucks her off. Echo can’t afford to get too close to him in an outright wrestling match; he’s bigger and thus stronger, which means she must be faster and cleverer.

She scrambles for his weapon, knocked from his hand in the fall to the mat, as taking it means he will be forced to yield. Bellamy is prepared for it and bowls her over, pinning her torso to the floor. Echo’s fingers have just closed over the cool plastic of the pipe when suddenly they are kissing, still writhing for dominance on the mat.

It’s unclear who started it—maybe they both did—but Echo instinctively clutches at the back of his neck with her free hand, drawing him in even closer. She folds and tightens her legs around him, and from there it’s a matter of mustering her strength and heaving, and trusting that Bellamy’s instincts will have him roll over and bring her with him.

Bellamy blinks up at her in breathless surprise when he finds himself on his back, but he doesn’t immediately move to free himself. Echo straddles his waist, her legs tight on either side of him, filled with a primal urge to move against him but held in place by—something. The weight of the moment. Past tensions.

“Yield?” she repeats, breathless.

“Wishful thinking,” he returns.

Echo hesitates, and then he grins. She bends down and kisses him to wipe the smile off his face, almost infuriated by it and yet—not really angry at all.

The sex isn’t a fight, but elements of it carry over. They don’t stop kissing long enough to remove their clothes, and once allowed to give into the urge, Echo can’t stop herself from grinding against him. In the end, her leggings come halfway off, tangled around one of her legs, and his pants are unzipped. Had it not been for the clothes, they might as well have been animals.

She remains on top, in control of the pace, but his grip on her hips is possessive. She had never expected him to want this, much less to want it as much as she does, and this surprises her. He watches her while she moves—her face, not her body. His eyes are glinting and dark brown in the light, the color of strong tea, firewood, earth. Echo closes her eyes, willing to let her guard down in this way if it means avoiding the danger of being seen so thoroughly.

* * *

On the days when she and Bellamy don’t spar, Echo’s habits vary. Much of what she does depends on what the others are doing. In the first few weeks of their time on the Ark, everyone—particularly those who came in pairs—spent a great deal more time in their rooms; Bellamy had once joked that they were probably pursuing a different sort of physical activity with one another to pass the time. In the end, of course, such pursuits can only pass so much time.

Echo often interacts with the others if they’re out of their rooms, and in progressively more unusual combinations. One day, she plays cards for hours with Bellamy, Emori, and Raven; the next, she helps Harper scrub the showers they all use. She makes herself useful in any way that she can. In lonely hours—restless hours—she still wanders, but often she cannot go very far without encountering someone else.

She’s helping Monty, Harper, and Raven look through boxes in one of several storage rooms when Raven calls things to a close. With four pairs of eyes and hands, they’ve been through all the boxes relatively quickly. Most of these boxes are filled with old clothing and shoes—not the bits and pieces of metal and tech that Raven searches for. “I think I’ve gotten all the scrap I can use for the time being,” she says. “By all means, keep looking, but I’m gonna get this stuff down to the lab. Echo, can you give me a hand?”

Echo nods, picking up the heavier of the two boxes they’ve managed to mostly fill with objects otherwise deemed useless. Raven takes the other and they leave Monty and Harper to clean up the mess and reorganize the closet.

Echo watches Raven as she leads the way to the workroom she spends much of her time in, but she betrays no sign of physical discomfort.

“What will you do with these things?” Echo asks.

"Depends,” Raven says. “Whatever needs fixing, I’ll strip this stuff down and use it in any way I can. That’s how it’s always been on this bucket of bolts—nothing wasted, or at least no material goods.”

“A good way to survive.”

“Yeah, but maybe not the best way to live,” Raven says wryly. 

The door to Raven’s lab has been left open, although it’s empty. Raven places her box onto the few inches of a metal table that aren’t covered by old wires and pieces of junk.

In answer to Echo’s questioning look, Raven grins briefly and says, “Never hurts to have plenty of scrap. Just drop that somewhere.”

Echo deposits the box on another table before pausing to examine a small metal—machine? Device?—that sits on the table. A small metal structure, with five silver spheres hanging from the structure by wires. “It’s a Newton’s cradle,” Raven says, nodding to indicate the object.

“What does it do?”

“Well, nothing, really,” Raven says. “Pull the ball on the end away from the others and let it go.”

Echo does so, and watches as the ball on the opposite end of the line swings in recoil. “It’s just momentum,” Raven says. “Travels down the line to the other end. Every sphere is affected, but only those two move.”

The spheres on either end are still clicking back and forth. “So it’s a toy?”

“Basically,” Raven says, grinning. “I found it in my room on our first day here. Somehow I wasn’t surprised to find an old ass Earth souvenir in the Go-Sci Ring. They got to hang onto their family heirlooms.”

Echo nods, reaching out to halt the movement of the spheres—the clicking grates on the nerves. “Because your leaders used to live here,” she says. “Bellamy told me.”

Raven’s casual tone doesn’t change, but there’s a slight pause, a missed beat, where Echo expects an affirmative to come. “I wanted to talk to you about him, actually.”

Echo tenses automatically, though she forces herself to relax lest Raven perceive this reaction as a threat. “What about him?” she asks.

“I wanted to ask you to be careful,” Raven says.

This surprises Echo, although she’s not sure what exactly she had been expecting of this conversation. Questions about the _deal_ , as Murphy had called it, certainly. It’s been one day since her tryst with Bellamy, and she’s monitored her own behavior since carefully, wary of giving something of herself away to a group of people with nothing better to do than watch each other. Bellamy has behaved as he normally might, sitting across from her at dinner and breakfast—as he has since their first meal here—and insolently stealing a look at her cards during an evening game of Go Fish.

Echo has no interest in entertaining the others’ curiosities, but something about Raven’s expression—steady, with no sign of mischief—makes her withhold her instinctive disavowal. “Careful about what?” is all she asks.

“Each other,” she says. “Feelings. Whatever.”

Echo wants desperately to be angry or offended, but her own respect for Raven tempers that response, at least until she understands the implications of this moment. “What makes you say this?”

Raven shrugs, vaguely exasperated. “Look, you’re both adults. If Bellamy has made his peace with you, that’s his decision to make. Five years is a long time to spend cooped up in a tin can with someone you hate.” She pauses, her expression thoughtful. Echo barely has time to wonder what she’s thinking of before she continues. “I could’ve died in Mount Weather. When the Ice Nation blew it up. But here I am.”

Echo swallows. “I’m sorry,” she says, because it seems like the only appropriate thing to say. She withholds _I was following orders._ That no longer holds water here, not when they could all likely say the same for some crime or another.

Raven nods. “I believe you,” she says. “And I think Bellamy believes you. That’s why I’m saying this—trust me, I don’t want to get involved in whatever you two have got going on. But whatever it is, for all our sakes, don’t hurt each other.”

“I have no intention of harming him.”

“I don’t mean physically,” Raven says dryly. “Although I’d be lying if I said that was never a concern.”

Echo half-smiles; it’s strange, how easily she can be induced to laugh at herself now. “I know what you meant,” she says. “Do you require more help?”

“I’m good,” Raven says, moving towards the stool at the table closest to Echo, seemingly as relieved as Echo is to have gotten this conversation over with. “Thanks for your help.”

“Earning my keep,” Echo returns, moving for the door. However much she values Raven’s skill and intelligence, there is a part of her that will never be comfortable with frank discussion of emotions, and that part of her is desperate to put this behind them.

Still, one question lingers. “Raven?”

“Yeah?” Raven says, looking up from the computer in front of her.

“Why did you have this conversation with me, and not with Bellamy?” Echo asks. “You two are close.”

“I was planning on it, actually,” Raven says. “But I know how Bellamy is. He’ll go down hard, but he’ll always get back up. I’m trying to look out for you, too.”   

Echo meets Raven’s eyes once more. _I look out for myself_ is already forming in her mouth, but something about Raven’s expression gives Echo pause. Raven had witnessed part of what Bellamy had, back on the ground. Only part of the ritual, the thwarted attempt, but maybe enough to understand—or perhaps Bellamy had told her after.

 _Whatever this is, finish it_ , she’d said then. Echo had taken this for lack of understanding, and perhaps it was, in the heat of the moment. Now she sees only understanding in Raven’s eyes, calm and unpitying.

“Thanks,” Echo says finally.  

“No problem,” Raven says, nodding. Echo turns to go, and hears the click of the Newton’s cradle behind her as she leaves. Despite herself, the sound makes her smile.

* * *

Raven’s words give Echo much to think about in the following hours. She avoids the others, mostly because she does not wish to run into Bellamy until her mind is settled. Settling her mind about Bellamy without Bellamy around, however, proves difficult.

She remains in her room for several hours, alternating between thinking and not thinking. The best thing for it, she decides, will be to see how Bellamy behaves when they spar tomorrow, once they’re alone. Perhaps yesterday’s incident was a one-time occurrence, an eruption of tension brought on by the vigor of the fight. Or perhaps Bellamy will want to do it again. Echo is amenable—more than amenable—but this change cannot go unspoken forever. Sooner or later, they will have to talk about the circumstances of this.

Echo dreads that moment, if and when it comes. She doesn’t know when she allowed herself to become attached to his presence, but she is frightened—shamefully frightened—of discovering how deep that attachment runs by having his presence taken away.

When she joins the others for dinner, Bellamy, Raven, Murphy, and Emori are already seated at the usual table, each with a bowl of algae—their freshly bloomed lifeblood—in front of them. Monty and Harper enter right behind her, taking their bowls as Echo does.

“Told you we’d all be rethinking this plan once it came down to the algae salad,” Murphy says, almost cheerfully. In what Echo has always considered a surprising move, despite not knowing him well before they arrived on this ship, Murphy is unofficially in charge of the kitchens.

“We’re only here, rethinking the algae salad, because of the plan,” Raven points out.

“You okay?” Bellamy asks as Echo sits down. She doesn’t allow herself to search for anything more than general interest in his expression when she meets his eyes.

“Fine,” Echo says. “Whether I’ll be fine after eating this is another matter.”

“It’s not _that_ bad,” Bellamy says, looking from Echo to Monty and Harper, whose expressions are equally unimpressed. “Algae or death, your choice.”

“Now that you mention it,” Harper says dryly.

The algae is, indeed, not that bad, although Echo wonders if she’ll still be saying that after a few years of living off little _but_ algae. Still, it’s easy enough to swallow, especially if she absorbs herself in the conversation around her.

Emori’s language lessons have gained a wider audience, it seems; Monty and Harper are now participating. “ _Fap au_ ,” Monty repeats, in a passable accent.

“Very good,” Emori says, straight-faced, although the glint in her eyes betrays her.

“What does that mean?” Harper asks, skeptical.

“Masturbate,” Echo says, which causes both Murphy and Raven to snort and earns an amused shake of the head from Bellamy.

“It’s sad how easily amused you guys are, you know that?” Monty says, but he’s trying not to laugh, too. “I’m—”

A sudden alarm cuts him off and causes everyone at the table to jump; Monty knocks over his water and Emori swears in Trigedasleng. Bellamy, Raven, Monty, and Harper are on their feet immediately, heading for the door. Echo follows into the corridor, then hesitates in her confusion, waiting for Murphy and Emori to catch up. The lights in the corridor are flashing intermittently, as though signaling which way to run.

“What’s happening?” Echo asks. Emori, close behind Murphy, looks as confused as Echo feels.

“That alarm means there’s a fire,” Murphy says. “We’d better follow them, see what’s going on.”

Echo, Murphy, and Emori follow the others’ thudding footsteps and raised voices to an electrical room near Raven’s lab. By the time they arrive, the fire seems to be out; Bellamy has extinguished it with white foam from a small canister. Raven and Monty are now peering into the blackened, smoking insides of a large console, talking rapidly and using words like _operating systems_ and _damage_.

The room isn’t large enough to comfortably fit several people, so Echo, Murphy, and Emori linger with Harper in the doorway, waiting to be told what—if anything—they can do. After a few minutes, Bellamy steps out of the room, frowning.

“What happened?” Emori asks.

“I don’t know—faulty wire might’ve set off sparks. Raven and Monty are checking out the damage now, but I don’t think it’s anything life-threatening, or there would be more alarms. I’ll stay and help if I can,” Bellamy says.

He looks around at all of them, but Echo starts slightly when his hand brushes her arm as he continues speaking. He seems unaware of what he’s doing, although Echo is profoundly aware of it. “You guys go back to dinner. I’ll let you know if there’s something you can do.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Murphy says, seemingly careless, although the way his gaze lingers as he looks into the smoky room says otherwise. He and Emori head back toward the mess hall together, although Emori looks back at Echo as though expecting her to follow. Harper, heedless of Bellamy’s instructions, slips into the electrical room to join Monty and Raven.

“It’s nothing to worry about,” Bellamy says. His hand is still on her arm, his fingers brushing her wrist. “Shit happens. We’ll deal with it.”

Echo swallows, then nods. “Let me know if I can help with something.”

“You know I will,” Bellamy says, letting go of her wrist. He gives her what he probably hopes is a reassuring nod, then turns back to the matter at hand. Echo leaves him to it, following the sound of Murphy and Emori’s retreating footsteps.

* * *

Bellamy and the others don’t return to finish their dinner while Echo, Murphy, and Emori finish theirs. Murphy suggests a game of Go Fish to pass some time, but Echo declines. Every reminder of the fragility of their life here, even a small one, sets her teeth on edge for some time afterward. She’s not in the mood for games.

Back in her room, though, Echo regrets not remaining with them. The hours pass much more slowly this way, even as she finds herself lulled into a doze thanks to the steady hum of the ship and gradual dimming of the lights. At first, this transition had alarmed her. She’d thought, for a few minutes, that the ship was dying around her. She’d soon realized, of course, that it was meant to encourage one to fall asleep. An artificial sunset, the close of an unending day.

There comes a light knock on the metal door. Echo startles awake, thinking inexplicably of a cage door shutting. She’s on her feet in seconds, crossing the room quickly to open the door.

It’s Bellamy. Echo hadn’t really been expecting anyone else. “Sorry,” he says, taking in her loose hair, the leggings that she sleeps in. “Did I wake you?”

“No.”

“It’s okay, you know,” Bellamy says, lips quirking. “You can admit it. You’re human.”

Echo tries very hard not to smile, not when there must be something to be dealt with. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” Bellamy says, shaking his head. “Nothing major was damaged. It was a freak thing, really. Raven and Monty are going to try and repair the damage tomorrow.”

“A freak thing,” Echo repeats.

“Yeah,” Bellamy says. “I think you’ll find that life on the Ark is pretty much a series of one freak accident after another.”

She can tell he’s joking, but this is not the sort of joke that will ease her worries. He must be able to tell, because his expression softens—softens much more than she deserves. “Really. It’s nothing to worry about.”

Echo bristles slightly. Perhaps, despite all he has said to the contrary, he really does think she’s weak. “What makes you think I’m worried?”

“Because I have eyes, and can see.”

Echo rolls her eyes. “ _Shof op_ ,” she says. “Did you wake me just to tell me not to worry?”

Now Bellamy looks a bit sheepish, but he stands his ground, meeting her eyes evenly. “I couldn’t sleep. Too wired. I thought you might be in the same boat, that’s all.”

Echo softens despite herself. “Do you want to spar?” she asks. It’s late, and the rush may do more harm than good, but it’s the best suggestion she can offer. “That might tire you out.”

“No,” Bellamy says, holding her gaze. “I don’t want to fight.”

Understanding strikes at once, and then seems to melt down through her body, a liquid warmth suffusing her. Echo pauses only briefly, then steps aside so that he can enter. He does, looking first at her and then allowing his gaze to travel the length of her quarters. He’s never been in her room before, and she has never been in his, but she can’t imagine they’re much different. Plain and mostly empty, save for the beds and one, lonely table.

Bellamy looks to her again, opening his mouth as if to speak, but Echo is already moving. She kisses him, hard, and he responds in kind, embracing her easily. She had expected him to smell of smoke and burnt things, but instead he smells freshly showered. Echo clings to him, his solid, clean warmth, even as he backs her toward the bed.

He peels her clothes off and she tears at his in kind, unable to be bare if he isn’t equally so. When he lays her back on the bed and licks into her, she bites down on one fist and puts the other in his curls, but she knows he can hear her muffled cries. He can’t see her like he could before, but he can still hear her, and she almost doesn’t care.

When he fucks her, she digs her nails into his back and bites his neck and he only groans for more. She answers every time.

Afterwards, Bellamy shifts off of her, though the bed is small enough that he doesn’t have far to go, settling on his side beside her. Their bodies are sticky with sweat and other things, so Echo appreciates the rediscovered feeling of cool air on her skin. Bellamy is quiet, apparently catching his breath, but he still hasn’t moved to get up. In the semidarkness, his bulk is both familiar and not, a known figure in an unknown territory.

“There’s water,” Echo says, after a few moments of quiet. “On the table.”

Bellamy shifts, turning so that he can reach for the cup of water on the bedside table. He passes it to her, and she takes a sip. Not as cool as she would like after such exertions, but it’s better than nothing. She hands it back to him. “For you.”

“Read my mind,” Bellamy says dryly, taking a long sip before returning the cup to its origin. Again, Echo expects him to rise and start putting on his clothes, as they had both done not long after the first time they did this.

“Well,” Echo says. “Did that tire you?”

“If you’re asking if I can go again, the answer is yes.”

Echo laughs despite herself. “I’m asking if you think you’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

“Your guess is as good as mine, I think,” Bellamy says, somewhat thoughtfully. “I’ll leave you alone, though, if that’s what you mean.”

He shifts again, this time as though to sit up; Echo surprises both of them by reaching out and touching his arm. In expecting him to leave, she must have given the impression that she wanted him to. “You can stay,” she says. “If you want.”

“You sure?” Bellamy asks. “I know you were trying to get some rest earlier—”

“No,” Echo says. “I was—you woke me, earlier, from a dream. Of sorts.”

“A dream?” Bellamy repeats. Echo can only dimly see his face, but she recognizes the furrow in his brow. Thoughtfulness, confusion, concern.

She hesitates. Though Bellamy is the only person who could possibly understand such things—there is an innate fragility to this, if she chooses to speak of it. Not to mention the history between them and around them. The ghosts. “Of the Mountain.”

Bellamy pauses, long enough for Echo to fear that she’s made a mistake in mentioning this at all. “Do you dream about it often?”

“Yes,” Echo says. “But I rarely remember the dreams. Only fragments.”

At some point, Bellamy has settled back into his original position, on his side and facing her. Echo remains on her back, even though it means her naked body is on display. There seems little reason to be guarded about her nakedness when Bellamy is still equally naked. This position means she can look at him or at the ceiling with ease, whichever feels safer at any given moment. “Do they frighten you?”

Echo bristles at that word, _frighten_ , instinctively. “Do I seem frightened?”

“Yeah,” Bellamy says. “Sometimes. But you shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”

“Why do you always do this?” Echo asks, because it feels like the only thing left to ask.

“Do what?” Bellamy says, confused.

“Say things like that to me,” Echo says. “Try to help me.” His ability to see her fear and his desire to help her—even when he has no reason to do so—have been present since they met, when he sacrificed himself so that she would not be bled. It was there again, the day of Praimfaiya, when he said _I’m afraid, too_ —when a day earlier, he would have killed her for threatening Octavia's life.

She has always done her best to save him because she has always felt something for him—some respect, or trust, or longing—whether she would have admitted it or not. Bellamy has no reason to feel these things for her. It’s laughable to think that he might.

“Because I think you deserve to be helped,” Bellamy says, his voice gruff. Perhaps he is as wary of having this conversation as she is—though, unlike her, he can put a stop to it whenever he chooses. “Do you not believe that?”

“But you don’t just _say_ these things to me,” Echo says, her eyes flicking towards his in the darkness. “I could make sense of it, your goodness, if you only offered me guidance and nothing else. You’re a leader. It’s logical. But we’ve been sparring for months. Now we’ve had sex. I don’t understand how you can—bring yourself to do it.”

There’s a pause, during which Echo hears nothing but Bellamy’s breathing and the insistent rattle of the vent overhead. “If you’re asking me to explain myself, then I can’t, not really,” he says. “I sparred with you, at first, because I was worried about you. You tried to kill yourself. I knew you, out of all of us, were the most—unprepared for life on the Ark. I didn’t know if you would try again.”

 _What do you suggest, then? Wandering the halls like a ghost?_ Echo remembers, as she opens her mouth to rebuke this. She hadn’t thought of suicide then, but it is easy to see why Bellamy would think she might have. She had filled her hours with wanderings, with grief and shame. Perhaps he thinks she was searching the ship for a way out.

She remains silent, letting him continue.

“But I liked it more than I thought I would,” he says. “Sparring. And I thought you liked it, too.”

“I did,” Echo admits, when he seems to be waiting for her to answer. “I do.”

“I still didn’t trust you, not at first,” Bellamy says. Echo recognizes the tone of his voice—he sounds almost astonished, as though he has begun speaking and cannot believe he hasn’t yet found a way to stop. “But I saw—things in you, things I recognized in myself. Loyalty. Viciousness. Fear. And at some point, I realized that if there was still good in me, there was good in you, too.”

“And now?” Echo prompts, when silence has fallen again. She feels as though she holds the weight of his words in her palms, clinging to them with every ounce of her strength.

“Now what?”

“Do you trust me?” Echo asks.

Bellamy lifts his head slightly, as though trying to scrutinize her face in the dark. “Would you betray me again?” he asks, almost curiously.

Echo thinks of the conversation she’d had earlier with Raven. She had felt many things—confusion, discomfort—but not doubt. Now, after losing the kru she has spent her life in service of, after Praimfaiya, after gaining a new kru in Bellamy and Raven and the others, there is nothing that could make her knowingly hurt Bellamy. “No,” Echo says. “Never.”

“Then I think you have your answer,” Bellamy says. “Do you trust me?”

Struck by this question, Echo does not answer; she leans up and over slightly, and catches his mouth with her own. A test, more than anything, but out of a desire for closeness, as well. Bellamy kisses her back until she parts them, licking her lips briefly in the aftermath.

“Will that suffice?” Echo asks. “Or do you need me to say it?”

Bellamy smiles in the darkness. “You know, I think I got it.”

They kiss for a while, albeit with no real goal behind it; after this weighty conversation, Echo feels worn, almost pleasantly wrung-out. At some point, they separate into an easy silence. Bellamy’s breathing gradually evens out and deepens, and if Echo had any doubt left, this finishes it. She lets him sleep, relishing in the steady, uncomplicated rise and fall of his breaths.

* * *

Echo doesn’t remember beginning to fall asleep, but her dreams are fleeting, inconsequential. When she wakes, she feels no more or less anxious than usual. To her enormous surprise, she finds while blinking in the artificial morning half-light that Bellamy is still in bed, though he must have rolled over at some point during the night.

Echo reaches out and touches his shoulder lightly, almost curiously, with the tips of her fingers. He doesn’t stir, so she allows her fingers to trail slowly down the solid, muscular ridge of his body.

“That tickles,” he mumbles, and Echo starts slightly.

“Sorry.”

“It’s not entirely unpleasant,” he says, shifting so that he can face her. She remembers abruptly that she is still naked, although a blanket now covers their lower halves. He must have done that sometime in the night, too.

Bellamy blinks at her sleepily for a few seconds, then says, “Do you talk in your sleep, by any chance?”

Echo withholds a grimace. “A childhood habit I never managed to break fully,” she admits. It had always been a sore point when she served in the Royal Guard and was responsible for life-threatening secrets, kru-threatening secrets, but nobody had been close enough to comment on it in years. “What did I say?”

“Not much,” Bellamy says. “I rolled over, and I must’ve jostled you, because I think you made a disparaging comment about my lineage. Not sure, though.”

“Perhaps you should attend some of Emori’s lessons, to know exactly which ancestor I cursed.”

Bellamy grins. “Good idea, I’ll ask her at breakfast,” he says. “That reminds me—I should go.”

Echo had expected this to come soon. The others will be stirring, and though she cannot speak for Bellamy, Echo has already endured enough suggestive glances and impertinent questions to last a lifetime—or at least the next five years. She watches as Bellamy rises and collects his clothing, dressing unhurriedly. “Would rather not get caught doing the walk of shame,” he says, as if echoing her thoughts. “Murphy already doesn’t shut the hell up.”

“Walk of shame?” Echo repeats.

“It’s a little archaic,” Bellamy admits. He pauses by the door, apparently appreciating the sight of her still in bed for a moment longer. “See you at breakfast.”

“Of course,” Echo says, watching him go, her chest tight with something like fondness.

Breakfast passes much like usual; everyone is quiet and focused mainly on eating until conversation finally begins to flow. Today, it’s a continuation of a conversation Murphy and Emori seem to have begun the night before. “There has to be somebody else out there,” Murphy says. “People like us, little green men, whatever.”

“Little green men?” Emori repeats, wrinkling her nose. “Why green?”

“Or men?” Harper points out.

“Are you guys seriously arguing about aliens?” Bellamy asks, somewhat exasperatedly.

“It’s not an argument, it’s a spirited debate,” Murphy says. “But since you all want to get involved, anyway, let’s hear it.”

“I’m team aliens,” Monty says. “The universe is infinite, so it follows that the possibilities are infinite.”

“Agreed,” Raven says, waving her fork vaguely. “Though I don’t know that it matters, considering we may never have the capabilities to find them. Humanity wasn't even close to finding other life before the first apocalypse.”

“And if they find us?” Bellamy asks, amused.

“They could come,” Echo says mildly. “Skaikru came.” She doesn’t have to elaborate on the suffering that had followed immediately afterward, for all involved.

A beat follows. “Thanks, Echo, for that slightly chilling thought,” Murphy says. “Emori, if you’re not gonna finish that, I’ll take it.”

The debate ends with Emori and Murphy’s playful bickering over their food, an occurrence which has become so routine that everyone has acclimated to it. At the close of breakfast, they go their separate ways—Murphy, Emori, and Echo into the kitchens to wash dishes, Bellamy and the others back to the electrical room to continue repairing damage from the fire. Echo doesn't dawdle. Once her share of the dishes are done, she leaves Murphy and Emori to their flirting, although she cannot find it in her to be annoyed by it today.

She still has some time left of the hour before sparring. Aware as she is that the others will call for her if they need her, she wanders without really thinking about it, loose and drifting, but not lost. The steps require no thought. Slowly but surely, she is learning this place.

Bellamy finds her by the window, two doors down from the sparring room. Earth glows before them, a ruined place. The black void of space, that unknown which strikes an even greater fear into Echo’s heart than the destruction of Praimfaiya, reaches on beyond. Her eye can find no end to it. She knows, from what Raven and Bellamy have told her, that there _is_ no end to it.

“Hey,” Bellamy says, brow furrowed, as he stops beside her. “You okay?”

“Yes,” Echo says, meeting his eyes. Or if not, she will be. They all will be. “You?”

"Fine,” Bellamy replies, brow still furrowed. “Still want to spar today?”

Echo nods. “Yes,” she says. She lifts her hand, palm up, fingers slightly spread. Bellamy looks down, giving a crooked smile when he recognizes what she seeks. He puts his hand in hers, this time lacing their fingers together.

Echo puts the sky behind her as they walk away.


End file.
